Software products, such as operating systems and applications, may require activation in order to ensure that they have been legitimately purchased. Unique product IDs are often provided to users of a software product and used during activation to ensure that the purchaser is authorized to install the software product. Typically, upon installation and activation of the software product by the user, the user is asked to enter the product ID. The product ID is then transmitted to a licensing entity (typically the software manufacturer) to determine the validity of the product ID.
The software manufacturer may desire to offer the software product at differing prices and/or tiers to the user depending on the type of hardware the software product will be running on. In an example, to entice a user to run the software product on refurbished hardware, a discounted license may be offered. However, offering discounted licenses may result in lost revenues to the software manufacturer by users installing the software product having the discounted license on hardware not allowed to use the discounted license. Upon activation, the user transmits the product ID of the software product with the discounted license to the licensing entity. The licensing entity validates the product ID, but may be unaware that the software product is being installed on hardware not privileged to the discounted license.